Flexible power and thermal architectures using a common machine

Abstract

A power and cooling management system configured to flexibly couple various adaptive modules to an integrated power and cooling unit to suit any aircraft platform is provided. The integrated power and cooling unit has a compressor, a power turbine, a cooling turbine and an integral starter generator mounted to the shaft of the power and cooling turbine. The integrated power and cooling unit may be pneumatically and/or pneumatically coupled to an adaptive module that comprises an additional compressor and an additional turbine or electrically coupled to a fuel cell which provides the main power after entering the full operation mode. When the engine includes an integral starter generator mounted thereto, the integral starter generator of the integrated power and cooling unit is operative to receive electric power from the engine mounted generator. Alternatively, a motor/generator may be mounted to the shaft of the additional turbine of the adaptive module.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] Not Applicable STATEMENT RE: FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH / DEVELOPMENT [0002] Not Applicable BACKGROUND [0003] The present invention relates in general to power and cooling architectures, and more particular, to flexible power and cooling architectures integrated in a common machine. [0004] In modern military aircraft design, system integration offers a balanced design in weight, performance, cost and volume that potentially yields an optimum system solution. In terms of air vehicle subsystem in recent years, a lot of emphasis has been placed on the integration of power and cooling systems. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,684,081, a typical auxiliary power unit (APU) is mechanically coupled to an engine shaft and a heat exchanger is integrated to the downstream of a compressor to form a primary auxiliary power system. The engine power is used to compress ambient air for air conditioning as well as power production in flight. As understoo...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0009] In one embodiment, the cooling turbine and the compressor are coupled to an engine discharged air, while the adaptive module includes an additional compressor coupled to downstream of the compressor of the integrated power and cooling unit for receiving the bleed air thereof and an additional turbine located at downstream of the additional compressor. The integral starter generator is electrically connected to an engine gearbox mounted integral starter generator to receive the electrical power during normal operation mode, such that the usage of the engine discharged air can be minimized or eliminated. In the event of failure of the integrate power and cooling unit, the system can be reconfigured into a conventional bleed air cycle system with proper operation of an overboard valve and a return valve. The hybrid electric and pneumatic power structure provides low risk, higher cooling capacity, redundancy cooling circuit, and low energy consumption of the aircraft.

[0010] In the case that the engine does not include an integral starter generator mounted thereto, the power and cooling system may be reconfigured to incorporate an additional motor / generator mounted to the shaft of the additional turbine in the adaptive module to main power and to perform cooling function. Similar to more electric integration as discussed above, the compressor and the cooling turbine are coupled to the engine discharged air, while the bleed air of the compressor is fed into the additional compressor. However, in this embodiment, the cooling turbine of the integrated power and cooling unit is not coupled to any load or the cooled equipment. Instead, the low-temperature discharge air of the cooling turbine of the integrated power and cooling unit is used as a heat sink to cool down the outlet air temperature of the compressor of the integrated power and cooling unit. The air is then expanded in the additional turbine to produce work for generating power to the aircraft through the shaft mounted motor / generator of the adaptive module. This integrated power and cooling structure combines shaft energy and bleed energy required for cooling and power into a single low penalty energy source. Also, the size of the engine gearbox and the generator can be significantly reduced.

Problems solved by technology

However, in this embodiment, the cooling turbine of the integrated power and cooling unit is not coupled to any load or the cooled equipment.

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